Abe Lincoln and Nancy Hanks : being one of Elbert Hubbard's famous little journeys : to which is added for full measure a tribute to the mother of Lincoln

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SEVENTEENTH AND CALIFORNIA STREETS

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Digitized by the Internet Archive

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http://www.archive.org/details/abelincolnnancOOhubb

^ 9^ 9^ 9^ 9^ 4^ 4^ 9^ 9^ 9^ 9^ «^ «^ 9^^

■ ' ' -*

ABE LINCOLN ■■>^
NANCY HANKS -*

BEING ONE OF ELBERT ">^

HUBBARD'S FAMOUS
LITTLE JOURNEYS

To which is added for full measure ..^ A>
a Tribute to the Mother ^

.•V

of Lincoln

jgK jS» 4^ «^ 4^ 4^ 4^ «£» 4^ «£» «{» <{» 4^ «S» j»

THE ROYCROFTERS
EAST AURORA, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1920
By The Roycrofters

"With malice toward none; with
charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish
the work we are in; to bind up the
nation's wounds; to care for him
who has borne the battle, and for
his widow and orphan — to do all
which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all nations."

9^ 9^ «!» 9^ ^ «^ «^ 9^ 9^ t^ «^^ ^ «}e «^

NANCY HANKS

MOTHER OF LINCOLN

N Spencer County, about forty
miles Northeast of Evansville,
and one hundred fifty miles
from Louisville is Lincoln
City, Indiana. There was no town
there in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
The " city " sprang into existence with
the coming of the railroad, only a few
years ago. The word " city " was
anticipatory 5«» 5o»

The place is a hamlet of barely a dozen
houses. There is a general store, a
blacksmith -shop, the railroad -station,
and a very good school to which the
youth come from miles around.
The occasion of my visit was the an-
nual meeting of the Indiana Editors'
Association &^ 5©.

<l 7 }:-

A special train had been provided us
by the courtesy of the Southern Rail-
way. There were about two hundred
people in the party.
At Nancy Hanks Park we were met by
several hundred farmers and their
families, some of whom had come for
twenty-five miles and more to attend
the exercises.

As I sat on the platform and looked
into the tanned, earnest faces of these
people, I realized the truth of that
remark of Thomas Jefferson, " The
chosen people of God are those who till
the soil."

These are the people who have ever
fought freedom's fight. And the children
of such as these are often the men who
go up to the cities and take them
captive. In the cities the poor imitate
the follies and foibles of the rich to the
extent of their ability.
But here, far away from the big towns
and cities, we get a type of men and

-4 8 J=-

women such as Lincoln knew. They
had come with the children, brought
their lunch in baskets, and were making
a day of it.

We formed in line by twos and ascended
the little hill where the mother of
Lincoln sleeps. On the simple little
granite column are the words :

NANCY HANKS LINCOLN

MOTHER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Died October 5, 1818

Aged 35 Years

Instinctively we uncovered.

Not a word was spoken.

An old woman, bowed, bronzed, with

furrowed face, approached. She wore a

blue sunbonnet, a calico dress, a check

apron. The apron was full of flowers.

CL The old woman pushed through

the little group and emptied her wild

flowers on the grave.

No words of studied oratory could

have been as eloquent.

■4 9 l!=-

A woman was paying tribute to the
woman who gave to the worid the
mightiest man America has produced!
€L And this old woman might have
been kin to the woman to whose resting-
place we had journeyed.
A misty something came over my eye-
sight, and through my mind ran a
vision of Nancy Hanks.
" Died aged 35," runs the inscription.
C[ The family had come from Ken-
tucky, only a half -day's journey distant
as we count miles today by steam and
trolley s^ &^

But in Eighteen Hundred Seventeen it
took the little cavalcade a month to
come from LaRue County, Kentucky,
to Spencer County, Indiana, sixteen
miles as the birds fly. North of the
Ohio River.

Here, land was to be had for the set-
tling. For ten miles North from the
Ohio the soil is black and fertile.
Then you reach the hills, or what the

t^I 10 >-

early settlers called " the barrens."
The soil here is yellow, the land rolling.
d It is picturesque beyond compare,
beautiful as a poet's dream, but tickle
it as you will with a hoe it will not
laugh a harvest.

At the best it will only grimly grin &^
It is a country of timber and toil.
d Valuable hardwoods abound — oak,
walnut, ash, hickory.
Springs flowing from the hills are plen-
tiful, wild flowers grow in profusion,
the trees are vocal with song and birds,
but the ground is stony and stubborn.

HERE the family rested by the side
of the cold, sparkling stream.
Across the valley to the West the hills
arose, grand, somber, majestic.
Down below a stream went dancing its
way to the sea.

And near by were rushes and little
patches of grass, where the tired horses
nibbled in gratitude.

-4 11 J:-

And so they rested. There were Thomas
Lincoln; Nancy Hanks Lincoln, his
wife; Sarah Lincoln, aged ten; and
little Abe Lincoln, aged eight.
The family had four horses, old and
lame. In the wagon were a few house-
hold goods, two sacks of commeal, a
side of bacon.

Instead of pushing on Westward the
family decided to remain. They built
a shack from logs, closed on three
sides, open to the South.
The reason the South side was left
open was because there was no chim-
ney, and the fire they built was half in
the home and half outside. Here the
family lived that first bleak, dreary
Winter. To Abe and Sarah it was only
fun. But to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who
was delicate, illy clothed, underfed,
and who had known better things in
her Kentucky home, it was hardship.
€[ She was a woman of aspiration and
purpose, a woman with romance and

'4 12 J=-

dreams in her heart. Now all had turned
to ashes of roses. Children, those little
bold explorers on life's stormy sea,
accept everything just as a matter of
course ^^ s^

Abe wrote, long years afterward: " My
mother worked steadily and without
complaining. She cooked, made cloth-
ing, planted a little garden. She coughed
at times, and often would have to lie
down for a little while. We did not
know she was ill. She was worn, yellow
and sad. One day when she was lying
down she motioned me to come near.
And when I stood by the bed she
reached out one hand as if to embrace
me, and pointing to my sister Sarah
said in a whisper, * Be good to her,
Abe!' " 5^ ^

The tired woman closed her eyes, and
it was several hours before the children
knew she was dead.
The next day Thomas Lincoln made a
coffin of split boards. The body of the

•4 13^

dead woman was placed in the rude
coffin. And then four men carried the
coffin up to the top of a little hill near
by and it was lowered into a grave 5«^
A mound of rocks was piled on top,
according to the custom of the times,
to protect the grave from wild animals,
d Little Abe and Sarah went down the
hill, dazed and undone, clinging to
each other in their grief.
But there was work to do, and Sarah
was the " little other mother."

FOR a year she cooked, scrubbed,
patched the clothing, and looked
after the household. Then one day
Thomas Lincoln went away, and left
the two children alone. He was gone
for a week, but when he came back he
brought the children a stepmother —
Sally Bush Johnston. This widow
who was now Mrs. Thomas Lincoln
had three children of her own, but
she possessed enough love for two more.

-4 14 J=~

Her heart went out to little Abe, and
his lonely heart responded.
She brought provisions, dishes, cloth
for clothing, needles to sew with, scis-
sors to cut. She was a good cook. And
best of all she had three books.
Up to this time Abe had never worn
shoes or cap. She made him moccasins,
and also a coonskin cap, with a dan-
gling tail. She taught Abe and Sarah to
read, their own mother having taught
them the alphabet. She told them stories
— stories of George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson. She told them of the
great outside world of towns and cities
where many people lived. She told them
of the Capitol at Washington, and of the
Government of the United States.
And they learned to repeat the names
of these States, and write the names
out with a burnt stick on a slab.
And Little Abe Lincoln and his sister
Sarah were very happy.
Their hearts were full of love and

gratitude for their New Mother, and
they sometimes wondered if anywhere
in the wide world there were little boys
and girls who had as much as they &^
" All I am, and all I hope to be, I
owe to my darling mother!" wrote
Abraham Lincoln years later.
And it is good to know that Sarah
Bush Lincoln lived to see the boy
evolve into the greatest man in Amer-
ica. She survived him four years.
Here Abe Lincoln lived until he was
twenty-one, until he had attained his
height of six feet four. He had read
every book in the neighborhood.
He had even tramped through the
forest twenty miles, to come back with
a borrowed volume, which he had read
to his mother by the light of a pine-
knot 5^ £••

He had clerked in the store down at
" The Forks," at Gentryville.
He had whipped the local bully — and
asked his pardon for doing so.

-< 16 J=-

He had spelled down the school and
taken parts in debates.
He could split more rails than any
other man in the neighborhood.
He had read the Bible, the Revised
Statutes of Indiana, and could repeat
Poor Richard's Almanac backward &i^
He was a natural leader — the strong-
est, sanest, kindest and truest young
man in the neighborhood.

WHEN Abe was twenty-one, the
family decided to move West.
There were four ox-carts in all.
One of these carts was driven by Abra-
ham Lincoln.

But before they started, Abe cut the
initials N. H. L. on a slab and placed
it securely at the head of the grave
of his mother — the mother who had
given him birth.

In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six
James Studebaker of South Bend
bought a marble headstone and placed

-4 17 iJs"

it on the grave. Mr. Studebaker also
built a picket-fence around the grave,
and paid the owner of the property a
yearly sum for seeing that the grave
was protected, and that visitors were
allowed free access to the spot.
In Nineteen Hundred Five certain
citizens of Indiana bought the hilltop,
a beautiful grove of thirty acres, and
this property is now the possession of
the State, forever. A guardian lives
here who keeps the property in good
condition &^ s^

A chapel, roofed, but open on all sides,
has been built, the trees are trimmed,
the underbrush removed s^^ Winding
walks and well-kept roadways are to
be seen. The park is open to the public.
Visitors come, some of them great and
learned 5©» s^

And now and again comes some old
woman, tired, worn, knowing some-
what of the history of Nancy Hanks,
and all she endured and suffered, and

-4 18 lis-

places on the mound a bouquet gather-
ed down in the meadows.
And here alone on the hilltop sleeps the
woman who went down into the shadow
and gave him birth.
Biting poverty was her portion; de-
privation and loneliness were her lot.
But on her tomb are four words that
express the highest praise that tongue
can utter, or pen indite :

MOTHER

OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

-4 19 P-

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

IKE world will little note nor
long remember, what we say
here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for
us, the living, rather, to be dedicated
here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining
before us — that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the
last full measure of devotion; that we
here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain; that this
nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom; and that govern-
ment of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the
earth. — Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech.

-4 20 l^-

No, dearie, I do not think my
childhood differed much from that
of other good healthy country young-
sters. I ' ve heard folks say that child hood
has its sorrows and all that, but the
sorrows of country children do not last
long. The young rustic goes out and
tells his troubles to the birds and
flowers, and the flowers nod in recogni-
tion, and the robin that sings from the
top of a tall poplar-tree when the sun
goes down says plainly it has sorrows
of its own — and understands.
I feel a pity for all those folks who
were bom in a big city, and thus got
cheated out of their childhood. Zealous
ash-box inspectors in gilt braid, prying
policemen with clubs, and signs reading,
" Keep Off the Grass," are woful things
to greet the gaze of little souls fresh
from God.

Last Summer six " Fresh Airs " were
sent out to my farm, from the Eighth
Ward. Half an hour after their arrival,

-4 21 J=-

one of them, a little girl five years old,
who had constituted herself mother of
the party, came rushing into the house
exclaiming, " Say, Mister, Jimmy Dris-
coU he 's walkin' on de grass! "
I well remember the first Keep-Off-the-
Grass sign I ever saw. It was in a
printed book; it was n't exactly a sign,
only a picture of a sign, and the single
excuse I could think of for such a
notice was that the field was full of
bumblebee nests, and the owner, being
a good man and kind, did not want
barefoot boys to add bee-stings to
stone-bruises. And I never now see one
of those signs but that I glance at my
feet to make sure that I have shoes on.
C Given the liberty of the country, the
child is very near to Nature's heart; he
is brother to the tree and calls all the
dumb, growing things by name. He is
sublimely superstitious. His imagina-
tion, as yet untouched by disillusion,
makes good all that earth lacks, and

-4 22 l>

habited in a healthy body the soul
sings and soars.

In childhood, magic and mystery lie
close around us. The world in which we
live is a panorama of constantly un-
folding delights, our faith in the Un-
known is limitless, and the words of
Job, uttered in mankind's morning,
fit our wondering mood : " He stretcheth
out the North over the empty place,
and hangeth the earth upon nothing."
€1 I am old, dearie, very old. In my
childhood much of the State of Illinois
was a prairie, where wild grass waved
and bowed before the breeze, like the
tide of a Summer sea. I remember when
" relatives " rode miles and miles in
springless farm- wagons to visit cousins,
taking the whole family and staying
two nights and a day; when books
were things to be read ; when the beaver
and the buffalo were not extinct; when
wild pigeons came in clouds that
shadowed the sun; when steamboats

4 23 lis-

ran on the Sangamon; when Bishop
Simpson preached; when Hell was a
place, not a theory, and Heaven a
locality whose fortunate inhabitants
had no work to do ; when Chicago news-
papers were ten cents each; when
cotton cloth was fifty cents a yard, and
my shirt was made from a flour-sack,
with the legend, " Extra XXX," across
my proud bosom, and just below the
words in flaming red, " Warranted
Fifty Pounds!"

The mornings usually opened with
smothered protests against getting up,
for country folks then were extremists
in the matter of " early to bed, early
to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise." We had n't much wealth,
nor were we very wise, but we had
health to burn. But aside from the un-
pleasantness of early morning, the day
was full of possibilities of curious things
to be found in the barn and under
spreading gooseberry bushes, or if it

-4 24 >•

rained, the garret was an Alsatia un-
explored. The evolution of the individual
mirrors the evolution of the race. In the
morning of the world man was innocent
and free; but when self-consciousness
crept in and he possessed himself of that
disturbing motto, " Know Thyself," he
took a fall.

Yet knowledge usually comes to us
with a shock, just as the mixture
crystallizes when the chemist gives the
jar a tap. We grow by throes.
I well remember the day when I was
put out of my Eden.
My father and mother had gone away
in the one-horse wagon, taking the baby
with them, leaving me in care of my
elder sister. It was a stormy day and
the air was full of fog and mist. It did
not rain very much, only in gusts, but
great leaden clouds chased each other
angrily across the sky. It was very
quiet there in the little house on the
prairie, except when the wind came and

shook the windows and rattled at the
doors. The morning seemed to drag
and would n*t pass, just out of contra-
riness ; and I wanted it to go fast because
in the afternoon my sister was to take
me somewhere, but where I did not
know, but that we should go somewhere
was promised again and again.
As the day wore on and we went up
into the little garret and strained our
eyes across the stretching prairie to see
if some one was coming. There had
been much rain, for on the prairie there
was always too much rain or else too
little. It was either drought or flood.
Dark swarms of wild ducks were in all
the ponds ; V-shaped flocks of geese and
brants screamed overhead, and down
in the slough cranes danced a solemn
minuet &^ 5©»

Again and again we looked for the
coming something, and I began to cry,
fearing we had been left there, forgotten
of Fate.

-4 26 Ii=-

At last we went out by the barn and,
with much boosting, I climbed to the
top of the haystack and my sister
followed. And still we watched.
" There they come!" exclaimed my
sister &i^ &^

" There they come!" I echoed, and
clapped two red, chapped hands for joy.
€L Away across the prairie, miles and
miles away, was a winding string of
wagons, a dozen perhaps, one right
behind another. We watched until we
could make out our own white horse.
Bob, and then we slid down the hickory
pole that leaned against the stack, and
made our way across the spongy sod
to the burying-ground that stood on a
knoll half a mile away.
We got there before the procession, and
saw a great hole, with square comers,
dug in the ground. It was half -full of
water, and a man in bare feet, with
trousers rolled to his knees, was work-
ing industriously to bale it out.

-4 27 Ii=-

The wagons drove up and stopped. And
out of one of them four men lifted a
long box and set it down beside the hole
where the man still baled and dipped.
The box was opened and in it was Si
Johnson. Si lay very still, and his face
was very blue, and his clothes were very
black, save for his shirt, which was very
white, and his hands were folded across
his breast, just so, and held awkwardly
in the stiff fingers was a little New
Testament. We all looked at the blue
face, and the women cried softly. The
men took off their hats while the
preacher prayed, and then we sang,
" There '11 be no more parting there."
C[ The lid of the box was nailed down,
lines were taken from the harness of
one of the teams standing by and were
placed around the long box, and it was
lowered with a splash into the hole.
Then several men seized spades and
the clods fell with clatter and echo.
The men shoveled very hard, filling up

-4 28 >"

the hole, and when it was full and heap-
ed up, they patted it all over with the
backs of their spades. Everybody re-
mained until this was done, and then
we got into the wagons and drove
away &^ s^^

Nearly a dozen of the folks came over
to our house for dinner, including the
preacher, and they all talked of the
man who was dead and how he came
to die s^ s«»

Only two days before, this man. Si
Johnson, stood in the doorway of his
house and looked out at the falling
rain. It had rained for three days, so
they could not plow, and Si was
angry. Besides this, his two brothers
had enlisted and gone away to the War
and left him all the work to do. He did
not go to the War because he was a
" Copperhead;" and as he stood there
in the doorway looking at the rain, he
took a chew of tobacco, then he swore
a terrible oath.

-4 29 >-

And ere the swear-words had escaped
from his lips, there came a blinding
flash of lightning, and the man fell all
in a heap like a sack of oats.
And he was dead.

Whether he died because he was a
Copperhead, or because he took a chew
of tobacco, or because he swore, I
could not exactly understand. I waited
for a convenient lull in the conversation
and asked the preacher why the man
died, and he patted me on the head and
told me it was " the vengeance of
God," and that he hoped I would grow
up and be a good man and never chew
nor swear. The preacher is alive now.
He is an old, old man with long, white
whiskers, and I never see him but that
I am tempted to ask for the exact
truth as to why Si Johnson was struck
by lightning.

Yet I suppose it was because he was a
Copperhead: all Copperheads chewed
tobacco and swore, and that his fate

-4 30 Jis-

was merited no one but the living Cop-
perheads in that community doubted.
C^ That was an eventful day to me.
Like men whose hair turns from black
to gray in a night, I had left babyhood
behind at a bound, and the problems
of the world were upon me, clamoring
for solution.

THERE was war in the land. When
it began I did not know, but that
it was something terrible I could guess.
I thought of it all the rest of the day
and dreamed of it at night. Many
men had gone away ; and every day men
in blue straggled by, all going South,
forever South.

And all the men straggling along that
road stopped to get a drink at our
well, drawing the water with the sweep,
and drinking out of the bucket, and
squirting a mouthful of water over
each other. They looked at my father's
creaking doctor's sign, and sang, " Old

'4 31 lis-

Mother Hubbard, she went to the
cupboard." &^ ^^

They all sang that. They were very
jolly, just as though they were going
to a picnic. Some of them came back
that way a few years later and they
were not so jolly. And some there were
who never came back at all.
Freight-trains passed Southward, blue
with men in the cars, and on top of the
cars, and in the caboose, and on the
cowcatcher, always going South and
never North. For ** Down South '*
were many Rebels, and all along the
way South were Copperheads, and they
all wanted to come North and kill us,
so soldiers had to go down there and
fight them. And I marveled much that
if God hated Copperheads, as our
preacher said He did, why He did n't
send lightning and kill them, just in a
second, as He had Si Johnson. And
then all that would have to be done
would be to send for a doctor to see

4 32 >-

that they were surely dead, and a
preacher to pray, and the neighbors
would dress them in their best Sunday
suits of black, folding their hands very
carefully across their breasts, then we
would bury them deep, filling in the
dirt and heaping it up, patting it all
down very carefully with the back of
a spade, and then go away and leave
them until Judgment Day.
Copperheads were simply men who
hated Lincoln. The name came from
copperhead -snakes, which are worse
than rattlers, for rattlers rattle and
give warning. A rattler is an open
enemy, but you never know that a
copperhead is around until he strikes.
He lies low in the swale and watches
his chance. " He is the worstest snake
that am."

It was Abe Lincoln of Springfield who
was fighting the Rebels that were try-
ing to wreck the country and spread
red ruin. The Copperheads were wicked

-433^-

folks at the North who sided with the
Rebels. Society was divided into two
classes: those who favored Abe Lin-
coln, and those who told lies about him.
All the people I knew and loved, loved
Abe Lincoln.

I was bom at Bloomington, Illinois,
through no choosing of my own, and
Bloomington is further famous for
being the birthplace of the Republican
party. When a year old I persuaded
my parents to move seven miles North
to the village of Hudson, that then had
five houses, a church, a store and a
blacksmith-shop. Many of the people
I knew, knew Lincoln, for he used to
come to Bloomington several times a
year " on the circuit " to try cases,
and at various times made speeches
there. When he came he would tell
stories at the Ashley House, and when
he was gone these stories would be
repeated by everybody. Some of these
stories must have been peculiar, for I

-< 34 1>

once heard my mother caution my
father not to tell any more " Lincoln
stories " at the dinner-table when we
had company. And once Lincoln gave
a lecture at the Presbyterian Church
on the " Progress of Man," when no
one was there but the preacher, my
Aunt Hannah and the sexton.
My Uncle Elihu and Aunt Hannah
knew Abe Lincoln well. So did Jesse
Fell, James C. Conklin, Judge Davis,
General Orme, Leonard Swett, Dick
Yates and lots of others I knew. They
never called him " Mister Lincoln,"
but it was always Abe or Old Abe, or
just plain Abe Lincoln. In that newly
settled country you always called folks
by their first names, especially when
you liked them. And when they spoke
the name, " Abe Lincoln," there was
something in the voice that told of
confidence, respect and affection.
Once when I was at my Aunt Hannah's,
Judge Davis was there and I sat on his

-4 35 If:-

lap. The only thing about the inter-
view I remember was that he really
did n't have any lap to speak of.
After Judge Davis had gone, Aunt
Hannah said, " You must always re-
member Judge Davis, for he is the man
who made Abe Lincoln!"
And when I said, " Why, I thought God
made Lincoln," they all laughed.
After a little pause my inquiring mind
caused me to ask, " Who made Judge
Davis?" C And Uncle Elihu answered,
" Abe Lincoln."
Then they all laughed more than ever.

VOLUNTEERS were being called
for. Neighbors and neighbors' boys
were enlisting — going to the support of
Abe Lincoln.

Then one day my father went away,
too. Many of the neighbors went with
us to the station when he took the
four-o'clock train, and we all cried,
except mother — she did n't cry until

-4 36 >••

she got home. My father had gone to
Springfield to enlist as a surgeon. In
three days he came back and told us
he had enlisted, and was to be assigned
his regiment in a week, and go at once
to the front. He was always a kind
man, but during that week when he
was waiting to be told where to go, he
was very gentle and more kind than
ever. He told me I must be the man of
the house while he was away, and take
care of my mother and sisters, and not
forget to feed the chickens every morn-
ing; and I promised.
At the end of the week a big envelope
came from Springfield marked in the
comer, " Official."

My mother would not open it, and so
it lay on the table until the doctor's
return. We all looked at it curiously,
and my eldest sister gazed on it long
with lack-luster eye and then rushed
from the room with her check apron
over her head.

4 37 5=-

When my father rode up on horseback
I ran to tell him that the envelope had
come 5^ 5o»

We all stood breathless and watched
him break the seals.
He took out the letter and read it
silently and passed it to my mother &^
I have the letter before me now,
and it says: " The Department is still
of the opinion that it does not care to
accept men having varicose veins,
which make the wearing of bandages
necessary. Your name, however, has
been filed and should we be able to use
your services, will advise."
Then we were all very glad about the
varicose veins, and I am afraid that I
went out and boasted to my playfellows
about our family possessions.
It was not so very long after, that
there was a Big Meeting in the " tim-
ber." People came from all over the
country to attend it. The chief speaker
was a man by the name of Ingersoll, a

■4 38 l!="

colonel in the army, who was back
home for just a day or two on furlough.
People said he was the greatest orator
in Peoria County.

Eariy in the morning the wagons began
to go by our house, and all along the
four roads that led to the grove we
could see great clouds of dust that
stretched away for miles and miles and
told that the people were gathering by
the thousand. They came in wagons
and on horseback, and on foot and
with ox-teams. Women rode on horse-
back carrying babies; two boys on one
horse were common sights; and there
were various four-horse teams with
wagons filled with girls all dressed in
white, carrying flags.
All our folks went. My mother fastened
the back door of our house with a bolt
on the inside, and then locked the
front door with a key, and hid the key
under the doormat.
At the grove there was much handshak-

•4 39 la-

ing and visiting and asking after the
folks and for the news. Several soldiers
were present, among them a man who
lived near us, called " Little Ramsey."
Three one-armed men were there, and
a man named Al Sweetser, who had
only one leg. These men wore blue,
and were seated on the big platform
that was all draped with flags. Plank
seats were arranged, and every plank
held its quota. Just outside the seats
hundreds of men stood, and beyond
these were wagons filled with people.
Every tree in the woods seemed to
have a horse tied to it, and the trees
over the speakers' platform were black
with men and boys. I never knew
before that there were so many horses
and people in the world.
When the speaking began, the people
cheered, and then they became very
quiet, and only the occasional squealing
and stamping of the horses could be
heard. Our preacher spoke first, and

-< 40 Ii=-

then the lawyer from Bloomington,
and then came the great man from
Peoria. The people cheered more than
ever when he stood up, and kept
hurrahing so long I thought they were
not going to let him speak at all. At
last they quieted down, and the speaker
began. His first sentence contained a
reference to Abe Lincoln. The people
applauded, and some one proposed
three cheers for " Honest Old Abe."
Everybody stood up and cheered, and I,
perched on my father's shoulder, cheer-
ed too. And beneath the legend, " War-
ranted Fifty Pounds," my heart beat
proudly. Silence came at last — a silence
filled only by the neighing and stamp-
ing of horses and the rapping of a
woodpecker in a tall tree. Every ear
was strained to catch the orator's
first words.

The speaker was just about to begin.
He raised one hand, but ere his lips
moved, a hoarse, guttural shout echoed

•4 41 1[=-

through the woods, " Hurrah'h'h for
Jeff Davis ! ! ! "

" Kill that man!" rang a sharp, clear
voice in instant answer.
A rumble like an awful groan came from
the vast crowd. My father was standing
on a seat, and I had climbed to his
shoulder. The crowd surged like a
monster animal toward a tall man
standing alone in a wagon. He swung a
blacksnake whip aroimd him, and the
lash fell savagely on two gray horses.
At a lunge, the horses, the wagon and
the tall man had cleared the crowd,
knocking down several people in their
flight. One man clung to the tailboard.
The whip wound with a hiss and a crack
across his face, and he fell stunned in
the roadway.

A clear space of fully three hundred
feet now separated the man in the
wagon from the great throng, which with
ten thousand hands seemed ready to
tear him limb from limb. Revolver shots

'4 42 iJi-

rang out, women screamed , and trampled
children cried for help. Above it all was
the roar of the mob. The orator, in
vain pantomime, implored order.
I saw Little Ramsey drop off the limb
of a tree astride of a horse that was
tied beneath, then lean over, and with
one stroke of a knife sever the halter.
€[ At the same time fifty other men
seemed to have done the same thing,
for flying horses shot out from different
parts of the woods, all on the instant.
The man in the wagon was half a mile
away now, still standing erect. The
gray horses were running low, with
noses and tails outstretched.
The spread -out riders closed in a mass
and followed at terrific speed. The
crowd behind seemed to grow silent.
We heard the patter-patter of barefoot
horses ascending the long, low hill. One
rider on a sorrel horse fell behind. He
drew his horse to one side, and sitting
over with one foot in the long stirrup,

-4 43 ^-

plied the sorrel across the flank with
a big, white-felt hat. The horse respond-
ed, and crept around to the front of
the flying mass.

The wagon had disappeared over a
gentle rise of ground, and then we lost
the horsemen, too. Still we watched,
and two miles across the prairie we
got a glimpse of running horses in a
cloud of dust, and into another valley
they settled, and then we lost them for
good 5©» &^

The speaking began again and went on
amid applause and tears, with laughter
set between.

I do not remember what was said, but
after the speaking, as we made our way
homeward, we met Little Ramsey and
the young man who rode the sorrel
horse. They told us that they caught
the Copperhead after a ten-mile chase,
and that he was badly hurt, for the
wagon had upset and the fellow was
beneath it. Ramsey asked my father

•4 44 l!="

to go at once to see what could be done
for him.

The man was quite dead when my
father reached him. There was a purple
mark around his neck; and the opinion
seemed to be that he had got tangled
up in the harness or something.

THE war-time months went drag-
ging by, and the burden of gloom
in the air seemed to lift; for when the
Chicago Tribune was read each even-
ing in the post-office it told of victories
on land and sea. Yet it was a joy not
untinged with black; for in the church
across from our house, funerals had
been held for farmer boys who had died
in prison-pens and been buried in
Georgia trenches.

One youth there was, I remember, who
had stopped to get a drink at our
pump, and squirted a mouthful of
water over me because I was handy s^
One night the postmaster was read-

-4 45 >••

ing aloud the names of the killed at
Gettysburg, and he ran right on the
name of this boy. The boy's father
sat there on a nail-keg, chewing a
straw. The postmaster tried to shuffle
over the name and on to the next.
"Hi! Wha— what 's that you said?"
" Killed in honorable battle — Snyder,
Hiram," said the postmaster with a
forced calmness, determined to face
the issue.

The boy's father stood up with a jerk.
Then he sat down. Then he stood up
again and staggered his way to the door
and fumbled for the latch like a blind
man &^ s^

" God help him! he 's gone to tell the
old woman," said the postmaster as
he blew his nose on a red handkerchief,
d The preacher preached a funeral ser-
mon for the boy, and on the little
pyramid that marked the family
lot in the burying-ground they carved
the inscription: "Killed in honorable

-4 46 1=-

battle, Hiram Snyder, aged nineteen."
il Not long after, strange, yellow,
bearded men in faded blue began to
arrive. Great welcomes were given
them; and at the regular Wednesday
evening prayer-meeting thanksgivings
were poured out for their safe return,
with names of company and regiment
duly mentioned for the Lord's better
identification. Bees were held for some
of these returned farmers, where twenty
teams and fifty men, old and young,
did a season's farm work in a day, and
split enough wood for a year. At such
times the women would bring big
baskets of provisions and long tables
would be set, and there were very jolly
times, with cracking of many jokes
that were veterans, and the day would
end with pitching horseshoes, and at
last with singing " Auld Lang Syne."
It was at one such gathering that a
ghost appeared— a lank, saffron ghost,
ragged as a scarecrow — wearing a fool-

-4 47 I^-

ish smile and the cape of a cavalryman's
overcoat with no coat beneath it. The
apparition was a youth of about twen-
ty, with a downy beard all over his
face, and countenance well mellowed
with coal soot, as though he had ridden
several days on top of a freight-car that
was near the engine. This ghost was
Hiram Snyder.

All forgave him the shock of surprise
he caused us — all except the minister
who had preached his funeral sermon.
Years after I heard this minister
remark in a solemn, grieved tone:
" Hiram Snyder is a man who can not
be relied on."

AS the years pass, the miracle of the
xA. seasons means less to us. But what
country boy can forget the turning of
the leaves from green to gold, and the
watchings and waitings for the first
hard frost that ushers in the nutting
season ! And then the first fall of snow,

-5|48li5-

with its promise of skates and sleds and
tracks of rabbits, and mayhap bears,
and strange animals that only come
out at night, and that no human eye
has ever seen!

Beautiful are the seasons; and glad I
am that I have not yet quite lost my
love for each. But now they parade
past with a curious swiftness! They
look at me out of wistful eyes, and
sometimes one calls to me as she goes
by and asks, " Why have you done so
little since I saw you last?" And I can
only answer, " I was thinking of you."
<! I do not need another incarnation
to live my life over again. I can do that
now, and the resurrection of the past,
through memory, that sees through
closed eyes, is just as satisfactory as
the thing itself.

Were we talking of the seasons? Very
well, dearie, the seasons it shall be.
They are all charming, but if I were to
wed any it would be Spring. How well

-=$49 lis-

I remember the gentle perfume of her
comings, and her warm, languid breath!
i[ There was a time when I would go
out of the house some morning, and
the snow would be melting, and Spring
would kiss my cheek, and then I would
be all aglow with joy and would burst
into the house, and cry: " Spring is
here! Spring is here! " For you know we
always have to divide our joy with
some one. One can bear grief, but it
takes two to be glad.
And then my mother would smile and
say, '* Yes, my son, but do not wake
the baby!"

Then I would go out and watch the
snow turn to water, and run down the
road in little rivulets to the creek, that
would swell until it became a regular
Mississippi, so that when we waded
the horse across, the water would come
to the saddlegirth.

Then once, I remember, the bridge was
washed away, and all the teams had

-4 50 Ii="

to go around and through the water,
and some used to get stuck in the mud
on the other bank. It was great fun!
C[ The first " Spring beauties " bloom-
ed very early that year; violets came
out on the South side of rotting logs,
and cowslips blossomed in the slough
as they never had done before. Over on
the knoll, prairie-chickens strutted pom-
pously and proudly drummed.
The war was over! Lincoln had won,
and the country was safe!
The jubilee was infectious, and the
neighbors who used to come and visit
us would tell of the men and boys who
would soon be back.
The war was over !

My father and mother talked of it
across the table, and the men talked
of it at the store, and earth, sky, and
water called to each other in glad re-
lief, '* The war is over !" But there came
a morning when my father walked up
from the railroad -station very fast,

-4 51 li!-

and looking very serious. He pushed
right past me as I sat in the doorway. I
followed him into the kitchen where
my mother was washing dishes, and I
heard him say/* They have killed Lin-
coln!" and then he burst into tears.
CL I had never before seen my father
shed tears — in fact, I had never seen
a man cry. There is something terrible
in the grief of a man.
Soon the church-bell across the road
began to toll. It tolled all that day. Three
men — I can give you their names —
rang the bell all day long, tolling,
slowly tolling, tolling until night came
and the stars came out. I thought it a
little curious that the stars should come
out, for Lincoln was dead; but they
did, for I saw them as I trotted by my
father's side down to the post-office &^
There was a great crowd of men
there. At the long line of peeled-
hickory hitching-poles were dozens of
saddle-horses. The farmers had come

-4 52 Js-

for miles to get details of the news.
C[ On the long counters that ran down
each side of the store men were seated,
swinging their feet, and listening in-
tently to some one who was reading
aloud from a newspaper. We worked
our way past the men who were stand-
ing about, and with several of these my
father shook hands solemnly.
Leaning against the wall near the
window was a big, red-faced man,
whom I knew as a Copperhead. He had
been drinking, evidently, for he was
making boozy efforts to stand very
straight. There were only heard a
subdued buzz of whispers and the
monotonous voice of the reader, as he
stood there in the center, his newspaper
in one hand and a lighted candle in the
other &^ 5^

The red -faced man lurched two steps
forward, and in a loud voice said,
" L — L — Lincoln is dead — an' I 'm
damn glad of it!"

■4 53 Ifl'

Across the room I saw two men strug-
gling with Little Ramsey. Why they
should struggle with him I could not
imagine, but ere I could think the
matter out, I saw him shake himself
loose from the strong hands that
sought to hold him. He sprang upon the
counter, and in one hand I saw he held
a scale-weight. Just an instant he stood
there, and then the weight shot straight
at the red -faced man. The missile
glanced on his shoulder and shot
through the window. In another second
the red -faced man plunged through
the window, taking the entire sash
with him.

" You '11 have to pay for that win-
dow!" called the alarmed postmaster
out into the night.

The store was quickly emptied, and on
following outside no trace of the red-
faced man could be found. The earth
had swallowed both the man and the
five-pound scale-weight.

-4 54 lii"

After some minutes had passed in a
vain search for the weight and the
Copperhead, we went back into the
store and the reading was continued 5«.
But the interruption had relieved
the tension, and for the first time that
day men in that post-office joked and
laughed. It even lifted from my heart
the gloom that threatened to smother
me, and I went home and told the
story to my mother and sisters, and
they too smiled, so closely akin are
tears and smiles.

THE story of Lincoln's life had been
ingrained into me long before I
ever read a book. For the people who
knew Lincoln, and the people who
knew the people that Lincoln knew,
were the only people I knew. I visited
at their houses and heard them tell
what Lincoln had said when he sat at
table where I then sat. I listened long
to Lincoln stories, " and that reminds

•^I 55>-

me " was often on the lips of those I
loved. All the tales told by the faithful
Herndon and the needlessly loyal Nic-
olay and Hay were current coin, and
the rehearsal of the Lincoln-Douglas
debate was commonplace.
When our own poverty was mentioned,
we compared it with the poverty that
Lincoln had endured, and felt rich. I
slept in a garret where the Winter's
snow used to sift merrily through the
slab shingles, but then I was covered
with warm buffalo robes, and a loving
mother tucked me in and on my fore-
head imprinted a good -night kiss. But
Lincoln at the same age had no mother
and lived in a hut that had neither
windows, doors nor floor, and a pile
of leaves and straw in the corner was
his bed. Our house had two rooms, but
one Winter the Lincoln home was
only a shed enclosed on three sides.
I knew of his being a clerk in a country
store at the age of twenty, and that up

■4 56 l!=-

to that time he had read but four
books; of his running a flatboat, split-
ting rails, and pouring at night over a
dog-eared lawbook; of his asking to
sleep in the law-office of Joshua Speed,
and of Speed's giving him permission
to move in. And of his going away after
his " worldly goods " and coming back
in ten minutes carrying an old pair of
saddle-bags which he threw into a
comer saying, "Speed, I 've moved! "
€[ I knew of his twenty years of
country law-practise, when he was con-
sidered just about as good and no better
than a dozen others on that circuit,
and of his making a bare living during
the time. Then I knew of his gradually
awakening to the wrong of slavery, of
the expansion of his mind, so that he
began to incur the jealousy of rivals
and the hatred of enemies, and of the
prophetic feeling in that slow but sure
mind that '' a house divided against
itself can not stand. I believe this

■4 57 J5-

Government can not endure perma-
nently half-slave and half-free."
I knew of the debates with Douglas and
the national attention they attracted,
and of Judge Davis' remark, " Lincoln
has more commonsense than any other
man in Am.erica;" and then, chiefly
through Judge Davis' influence, of his
being nominated for President at the
Chicago Convention. I knew of his
election, and the coming of the war, and
the long, hard fight, when friends and
foes beset, and none but he had the
patience and the courage that could
wait. And then I knew of his death,
that death which then seemed a ca-
lamity— terrible in its awful blackness.
C But now the years have passed, and
I comprehend somewhat of the paradox
of things, and I know that his death
was just what he might have prayed
for. It was a fitting close for a life that
had done a supreme and mighty work.
C His face foretold the end.

•4 58 Ii=-

Lincoln had no home ties. In that
plain, frame house, without embellished
yard or ornament, where I have been
so often, there was no love that held
him fast. In that house there was no
library, but in the parlor, where six
haircloth chairs and a slippery sofa to
match stood guard, was a marble
table on which were various gift-books
in blue and gilt. He only turned to
that home when there was no other
place to go. Politics, with its attendant
travel and excitement, allowed him to
forget the what-might-have-beens 5o»
Foolish bickering, silly pride, and stu-
pid misunderstanding pushed him out
upon the streets and he sought to lose
himself among the people. And to the
people at length he gave his time, his
talents, his love, his life. Fate took
from him his home that the country
might call him savior. Dire tragedy
was a fitting end ; for only the souls who
have suffered are well -loved.

-459li="

Jealousy, disparagement, calumny, have
all made way, and North and South
alike revere his name.
The memory of his gentleness, his
patience, his firm faith, and his great
and loving heart are the priceless her-
itage of a united land. He had charity
for all, malice toward none; he gave
affection, and affection is his reward.
Honor and love are his.

■4 60 I[^-

«^«^«^«^9^«{r9}r«{t9^«^9^9}r«}r9^

Gettysburg Address

lOURSCORE and seven years
ago our fathers brought forth
on this continent a new nation
conceived in liberty and dedi-
cated to the proposition that all men
are created equal. Now we are engaged
in a great civil war testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We
are met on a great battlefield of that
war. We have come to dedicate a por-
tion of that field as a final resting
place for those who here gave their
lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this. But, in a larger sense,
we can not dedicate, we can not con-
secrate, we can not hallow this ground.
<tThe brave men, living and dead,

■4 61 h

who struggled here have consecrated it
far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note nor
long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for
us to be here dedicated to the great
task remaining before us — that from
these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion
— that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain ;
that this nation under God shall have
a new birth of freedom; and that
government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.

-4 62 Ifi-

so HERE THEN ENDETH THE BOOK, "ABE
LINCOLN AND NANCY HANKS," AS WRITTEN
BY ELBERT HUBBARD, AND DONE INTO
PRINT BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT THEIR
SHOPS WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA, ERIE
COUNTY, NEW YORK, JANUARY, MCMXXXII

More Than
Forty Years Ago

MORE than forty years ago The
International Trust Company
was organized — Pioneer Trust Banking
Business in the Rocky Mountain West.

CI In the life of any successful business
as old as this are many stories of business
romance and human interest.

CI But these we will not recount, because
our interest has always been more in
what we were doing and could do for
our patrons than in what we had done.

CI The result of this policy has been the
building of a bank offering every modern
banking help that anyone could ever
want, could ever need; Trust Banking,
Commercial Banking, Savings Banking,
Real Estate Loans, Investment Bank-
ing, Safe Deposit Boxes.

[nternXtional

'!TOJ^ Company

SEVENTEENTH AND CALIFORNIA STREETS

'71.3.00^,01^, O^S€Z